Deducing the ‘moods’ of God
Author attempts ‘multidimensional’ analysis of God
By Bruce T. Murray
Author, Religious Liberty in America: The First Amendment in Historical and Contemporary Perspective
A moody God
Is God bi-polar? Borderline? Or just a bit manic?
Author Robert Wright takes a look at God’s ever-changing moods in his provocatively titled book, “The Evolution of God.” Wright discussed his work at a recent Zócalo forum at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.
“Sometimes, God seems nice and compassionate, and sometimes he doesn’t,” Wright said. “For example, in the Hebrew Bible, at one moment he’s saying the Israelites should annihilate nearby peoples who worship the wrong Gods; and he’s unequivocal about that: He says leave nothing breathing – not even livestock, much less women and children. (Deuteronomy 13) But at other times, you see the Israelites not only embracing peaceful coexistence with neighbors who worship a different God, but actually invoking that god to validate a peaceful coexistence.
“What accounts for these changing moods that you see in all Abrahamic traditions? What circumstances, at the time the scriptures were written, might account for the vacillating tone of belligerence and tolerance? What circumstances bring out the worst in religion, and what circumstances bring out the best? If we can understand what brings out the worst and the best in ancient times, that might help us understand what brings out worst and best today.”
‘Circumstances on the ground’
Wright attributes God’s varying tone to the social, political and economic conditions in the ancient world. When Israel is under stress, siege or foreign occupation, the Hebrew prophets offer divine justice and occasionally God’s wrath against Israel’s enemies. For example, during the Babylonian captivity, God assures the Israelites that their oppressors will one day “bow down before you with their faces to the ground; they will lick the dust at your feet … [and] eat their own flesh … Then all mankind will know that I, the LORD, am your Savior.” (Isaiah 49)
Later, when the Persians conquer the Babylonians, and the Israelites are allowed to return home and worship as they please, God appears much more benevolent – in the vein of his promise to be a “light unto the nations.” (Isaiah 51)
“I do think it’s the circumstances on the ground that matter,” Wright said of the shifting tone in biblical texts. “When I look at the so-called religious conflicts in the world, my view is that they are not really religious conflicts; but they tend to be about underlying political and economic issues, even though the people involved invoke theology to justify killing. The root cause tends to be events on the ground. … It may seem ironic to write a long book about religion whose point is that religion doesn’t matter.”
(Wright's view on religion is sometimes called "reductionism," which will be discussed later in this article.)
Wright applies the same “facts-on-the-ground” principle not only to Judaism and Christianity, but also Islam – all three religions comprising the so-called “Abrahamic” faiths. For example, following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, when many Americans sought out the Koran in attempt to understand what had happened, Wright said they weren’t looking in all of the right places.
“I don’t think it’s irrelevant [to look to Islamic scripture], but you're better off reading about the history of the 20th century and the Middle East," Wright said. "What you find in the Koran is what you find in most other scriptures: There are good verses and bad verses. The big question to me is why people focus on one sort of verse or another.”
Game theory and theology
Wright correlates game theory with religious doctrine and politics: When a political situation is viewed as advantageous to both sides, religious attitudes tend to be tolerant; but when the situation is viewed as a “zero sum game,” intolerance pervades.
“When a group of people, like adherents of a religion, see themselves in a non-zero sum situation, in which they can gain through peaceful coexistence, they are much more likely to find tolerance in their hearts,” Wright said. “But when a group sees its fortunes as inversely correlated with another group and a threat to its interests, you’re much more likely to see belligerence. It’s a commonsensical idea.”
Game theory can be applied to both international relations and domestic political and religious struggles. For example, Wright attributes the violence of King Josiah to a zero-sum attitude toward gods other than Yahweh. The prophets and followers of these other gods would have represented political competition for the king, so he eliminates them – with a vengeance:
“Just as he had done at Bethel, Josiah removed and defiled all the shrines at the high places that the kings of Israel had built in the towns of Samaria that had provoked the LORD to anger. Josiah slaughtered all the priests of those high places on the altars and burned human bones on them. Then he went back to Jerusalem.” (2 Kings 23)
Wright explains Josiah’s behavior this way: “From a King’s perspective, there is an incentive to wipe out all other gods but Yahweh, because these would have been rival sources of power, from the King’s point of view. His rivals would have been the prophets of these Gods. In ancient times, political power flowed from claims of access to the divine. Policy discourse consisted of saying, ‘I think God wants this to happen.’”
As a modern example of this phenomenon, Wright cited the argument between former President George W. Bush and the Rev. Pat Robertson over the Iraq war: Bush was reportedly confident that God was on his side in the war, while Robertson had "deep misgivings."
Conflicting claims of “God’s will” are an expression of game theory, which Wright believes is intrinsic to human psychology. “This basic, recognizable feature of the human mind is the engine of these huge eruptions of religious belligerence and phases of religious tolerance. You can trace to them to this one mechanism of the mind as it plays out in different circumstances – the perception of zero sum or non-zero sum situations. Do people see themselves as threatened, or do they see the possibility for fruitful collaboration? This has shaped the history of all three Abrahamic faiths.”
Monotheism: Religion of peace?
The Old Testament indicates ancient Israel was often polytheistic – with Yahweh existing alongside many lesser gods; and even when monotheism takes hold, at times the Israelites slip back to polytheism. Wright correlates the polytheistic times with cosmopolitanism and peaceful relations among nations and their gods. In ancient societies, diplomacy often meant recognizing or even adopting a neighbor’s gods. Royal marriages were also used to cement relations between nations.
In early biblical history, King Solomon followed a laissez-faire
policy toward religion and marriage. According to biblical account, Solomon had 700 wives of various nationalities and religions — which had an unhealthy influence on the king. "The LORD became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel," according to 1 Kings 11.
Wright counters that Solomon was following a wise and pragmatic policy that benefited Israel and its neighbors through the maintenance of peace – and resulting prosperity. Solomon was playing a non-zero sum political game.
Later in biblical history, the prophet Hosea calls for the worship of Yahweh alone, with severe discipline for those who do not comply.
"Josiah picks up on this theme and really goes to town with it, and he cleans out the pantheon," Wright said. “Israel moves from a polytheistic society that is tolerant of other peoples and other gods to a zero-sum world view that leads to monotheism.”
The Book of Isaiah more fully defines a monotheistic worldview. Isaiah prophesizes the arrival of a single, triumphant God who will judge all nations. The Book filled both with words of hope for the captive Israelites, as well as what Wright describes as “retributive and belligerent utterances,” such as those to be found in Isaiah 49.
“The spirit of the emerging monotheism seems to be very much about retribution” against the Babylonian oppressors, Wright said. “God is not only going to overcome their gods, but their gods don’t even exist. When monotheism emerges, it is not a pretty picture of God that we see. There is a nationalist air among the prophets who are moving Israel toward the worship of only one God.
“However, things do get better: Cyrus the Great conquers the Babylonians and returns the exiles to Jerusalem; and Israel is for the first time in a secure neighborhood. It doesn’t have to worry about war, and there is an opportunity for a non-zero sum exchange. … I don’t think monotheism is intrinsically belligerent.”
Reductionism
– Robert Bellah
Wright espouses a “materialist” or Marxist view of religion, in which the material circumstances of the world are the primary influence in shaping religious ideas.
“I do not buy into the idea that any religion is eternally and intrinsically anything – good or bad,” Wright said. “The question of whether Islam or any other religion is a ‘religion of peace’ is not the question, because all religions show that sometimes they are, and sometimes they aren’t.”
Wright’s view might be described as “reductionist” – the notion that religion really represents something else, like politics, psychology, or economics. Religious Studies Professor Rowland Sherrill describes reductionism this way: “It’s the idea that religion is reducible to some other thing; or to say, whenever you find religion, what you’re really dealing with is some kind of neurosis, a political ideology, or a quest for self-interest. At the university level, like the public, one is inclined to think that there is no such thing as religion; and that religion is just a camouflage for some other thing.” (Quoted from Religious Liberty in America: The First Amendment in Historical and Contemporary Perspective.)
Placed in the context of game theory, the reductionist view of religion could very likely elicit a “zero sum” reaction from many, particularly religious conservatives. So, ironically, the “situation on the ground,” that causes a negative religious mood shift could very well be a patronizing or condescending view toward someone’s religion – rather than politics, economics or social conditions.
Sociologist Robert Bellah argues that religion is such a pervasive aspect of human experience – enduring from prehistoric times to the present – that it simply cannot be reduced.
“The conclusion grows ever stronger that religion is a part of the species life of man, as central to his self-definition as speech,” Bellah wrote in Beyond Belief: Essays on Religion in a Post-Traditionalist World. “Since religious symbolization and religious experience are inherent in the structure of human existence, all reductionism must be abandoned.”
Wright hedges his view on this point: “I do think religion does matter even though the character of religion at any given point in time is a function of facts on the ground. Scriptures do matter. They are the resources people have to draw on. But I don’t think scriptures matter as much as other things.”
Further reading
The Bible's Vindication of Obama's Middle East Strategy
Column by Robert Wright, June 8, 2009 in the Huffington Post
"For much of its early existence, Israel was a small nation in a tough neighborhood. It got pushed around by such superpowers as Assyria and, most famously, the neo-Babylonian empire, which in 586 BCE destroyed the Jerusalem temple and exiled Israel's elites. Like Palestinians today, Israelites felt humiliated and dispossessed; they weren't in control of their destiny. The result was a thirst for revenge."
Decoding God's Changing Moods
Article by Robert Wright, June 15, 2009 in Time magazine
"God then had bursts of moral growth — within both Judaism and Islam — and that the proven ingredients of that growth are around today, just when another such burst is needed."
Religious Liberty in America: The First Amendment in Historical and Contemporary Perspective
By Bruce T. Murray, published by the University of Massachusetts Press. Chapter 2, "Understanding People of Faith," includes a discussion of reductionism and the reaction of religious people to this notion.
What God Wants
Roger Waters takes an acerbic look at God's contradictory modes.